Time to Pay the (MS) Piper

If you’re going to dance, the saying goes, you’re going to have to pay the piper. Well, with some pharmaceutical assistance, I’ve been “dancing” and the piper has his hand out.

I’ve previously referred to Provigil as my “trade-show drug” — to say that it could get me through a few days, like when I need to attend a trade show. More properly, however, I should call it a “loan shark drug” as it demands interest of me far beyond the rates others pay to their personal energy bank.

Now I get maybe a day or a day and a half before the thugs come to collect on my debt.

Yet again, I am forced to adjust how I respond to my multiple sclerosis. I could formerly almost pretend that MS didn’t tap me like a vampire with an IV bag. There was always a payback, but my loan shark has upped his rates and his collectors have gotten bigger, uglier, and meaner.

I might not have found this out had I not scheduled two events back-to-back with long drives, high altitudes, and early wake-up calls. This morning, as I sit on line for a Washington State Ferry to take me across Puget Sound well before the sun will brighten the mountain tops of the Cascades behind me, I can feel the breath of the ugly bastards on my neck, and they’ve already slipped heavy chains around my ankles.

It will be a forearm crutch day. It may be a day that I have to excuse myself and slip into the car for a kip. It will be a day which I must perform, and I’ve little doubt that my loan shark will give me a few hours in which to do so. It will only be hours though, not the full day, and I’m just going to have to get done what I can and accept that as my day’s maxim.

I don’t do this often (that should read, “I can’t do this often”) anymore… I have to admit that I don’t think I want to do it anymore — it hurts too much.

I feel not unlike a film character who can’t seem to get out from under a gambling habit and is forever trying to “win big” to pay off his bookie and the “creative financier” who helped him dig his own grave of debt and despair.

I’m known to say that “MS didn’t teach me anything, but I’ve been a good student” as a way of saying that I’ve learned much from this disease. I guess, today, I’m admitting to (you and) myself that I haven’t learned enough and that it’s about time that I allowed this one to sink in. If not, I’ll be no good to anyone… myself Included.

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Trevis Gleason

Trevis L. Gleason is a food journalist and published author, an award-winning chef and culinary instructor who has taught at institutions such as Cornell University, New England Culinary Institute and...read more